


A Man in Hue

by Ashmole



Category: 16th & 17th Century CE RPF, 16th Century CE RPF, Elizabethan and Jacobean Theatre & Literature RPF, Historical RPF, Literary RPF, Real Person Fiction, Shakespeare RPF
Genre: Alcohol, Blow Jobs, Drunk Sex, Elizabethan, London, M/M, Southwark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-30
Updated: 2016-03-30
Packaged: 2018-05-30 03:26:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6406762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashmole/pseuds/Ashmole
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will isn’t sure whether he’s driven by affection or a desire suddenly to possess some part the flow of words that have been spilling from Kit for the past hour, to touch the man inside, but he’s leaning forward and kissing Kit just as he starts to say something.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Man in Hue

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Porn Battle Amnesty](http://pbam.dreamwidth.org/). Prompt: RPF (Historical), Christopher Marlowe/William Shakespeare, ink, admiration, alcohol

After all, Southwark, though chaotic, is not a large world and the world of players and playwrights, while at times messier yet, is smaller still - so they met in short order at the alehouse one night not long after Will had come to the city. This man known already by reputation, and by his words. The writer of _Tamburlaine_. And the great man had joined them as they were drinking, a friend of a friend, looking not so great after all; looking young still, handsome and moon-faced, and of an age with Will himself, and as ready to the drink and to merry making as any.

This was the pattern of their scene after the playhouses disgorged themselves onto the southern bank and by late afternoon they were spare parts – the evening into nightly alehouse, hot and loud and hugger-mugger with one another. Until they grew to know each other.

“And what brought you to London? I can drink to that!”

“How goes the work?”

“Whenever I have call to visit the Inns of Court it reminds me of Cambridge.”

“Shall I get an earring, what do you reckon? Or maybe you’d look well with one.”

“You have word from Stratford? I trust that Anne is well, and the children. A toast to them…”

Or whatever chatter.

Something different is in the air this evening. A night at the peak of summer so the sky is still light outside the tavern even as the hours grow late after a sweltering day. It is just the two of them after the handful of others begged off early.

They are sitting in a dark alcove at the back of the labyrinthine pub and they are laughing. They have been laughing for the last hour and their faces are flushed with it, with the heat, and with drink. Kit gets loud when he’s drunk and his hair is a mess where he runs his hands through it. His hands which are stained with ink. He hasn’t shaved in a few days, Will thinks. He’s been writing something new. That’s why he’s so animated with wit and why he seems even keener. Chattering about some favourite lewd corner of the Classics.

All at once he finds this scruffy, laughing man, across from him in the failing light of a dingy slophouse, beautiful.

The dark wooden table between them is wet with overspill from their tankards and as Kit gesticulates he knocks his drink and it soaks his shirt. Kit laughs again and rolls his sleeve up.

“Wait, I have a handkerchief,” Will says.

Not really sure what compels him, he’s suddenly pressing the cloth against Kit’s arm and pausing too long. Seeing the puzzled and drink addled look on Kit face. Will isn’t sure whether he’s driven by affection or a desire suddenly to possess some part the flow of words that have been spilling from Kit for the past hour, to touch the man inside, but he’s leaning forward and kissing Kit just as he starts to say something. Kit doesn't move under him at first and then opens to his tongue. Their mouths taste of hops.

There’s a swell of noise from the bar down the passageway and Will remembers where they are. When he breaks off Kit looks dumbstruck, a question forming on his lips still wet from where Will kissed them. Kit immediately casts around fearfully to check if they were seen. For a moment Will thinks he has made a terrible mistake. He’d heard the gossip, and just assumed. Had felt something there. But then Kit smiles and blushes, at first shy and then more like he is amused. He looks down at the wood grain then up at Will through the locks of hair that have fallen over his forehead.

“Well,” he says and raises his eyebrows.

"Not here,” he says and grabs Will’s arm to pull him out of his seat to leave.

The touch of it hot. Money is hastily stuffed into a barman’s hand and they stumble out onto the street disarrayed and giddy and still laughing but now at a shared secret and a purpose.

Kit clearly has a plan and veritably drags Will, breathless and stumbling, along with him down turns and down side roads away from the river until they reach an unassuming door and the lock is fumbled open and they tumble across the threshold. On the other side they hurry through the kitchen of the small back-alley inn where Kit rents his room. Will feels like a child stuttering pleasantries to a friend’s parents to Kit’s landlady when she comes downstairs to check on the noise of their entry. He feels mildly horrified and yet excited at how clearly she knows what is on the cards, looks Will up and down from eyes to boots, and scolds Kit about the hour and nothing more than that. He wonders how many others Kit has traipsed through this Kitchen, and how many of them were also men. He grows hard despite the beer at the thought even as she appraises him then rolls her eyes. Then they’re tripping up the narrow stairs and through the door to Kit’s room on the upper floor.

As soon as they are through the door Will is pressed against the plaster wall and feels its texture on his back as Kit surges at him. While the kiss before was stolen and unexpected, the first step on an unknown land, now he feels Kit’s hunger and they explore one another. Kit’s hands are on his body, are under his tunic, are gripping his hair and tilting his head back against the wall so that Kit can bury his face in Will’s neck.

The light of the day is almost gone. From the street the hubbub of Southwark filters as a murmur through the open casement to the small room: the oyster sellers, the drunkards, and the barkers. So that as their mouths meet, clumsied by beer, and the scratch of whiskers pricks at the edge of his lips Will can hear Kit’s name shouted somewhere distant calling the crowds to see and the absurdity makes him smile against the hot mouth opening against his. Kit feels it and matches him. They break off laughing.

When Will leans in to begin again Kit presses a hand on his chest, hot through the thin linen, and stops him.

“Wait,” says Kit “I want to see you.”

“One moment.”

And just like that Kit leaves to fetch a light from the hearth downstairs and Will is left alone in the room in the growing gloom of twilight. Will feels awkward in his skin, sticky from the still hot summer heat even as the day fades, his feet hot in his boots. Sinful in his sweat and still painfully hard. The world is painted in greys. He moves towards the small open window over the table where he supposes Kit does his writing. There are pages across it with writing in progress and an already stripped quill beside an ink well. If there was just more light then Will would seize those pages then and there and start reading. Instead he forces himself to leave them where they lie. He is sitting perched on the edge of Kit’s narrow bed, nervous with expectation, when the other man returns.

With the lit taper Kit lights the lantern on the table, a writer’s extravagance, and the room goes golden and hazy through the horn panes. The pages now buttery in the light but left forgotten because Kit strides over towards Will on the bed. Will looks up at Kit in the warm light: rakish and swaying from the booze and knows how much he wants this. He swallows hard as Kit kneels down on the dusty floorboards and works off Will’s boots then pulls down his hose, taken with the strange intimacy of the act. The feeling of hairs catching the fabric after a long day prickles. Will feels the rough wood under the soles of his bare feet.

Kit looks up at him, grinning that same genuine, half-amused smile, and runs his hand up the back of Will’s leg, cupping the calf, stops at the knee and gently pushes his legs apart. Then he pauses. Their gazes are locked on one another, Kit’s eyes are sparkling and filled with mischief, and a well of good feeling fills Will’s chest towards the other man. He sees the question in the Kit’s eyes. He wets his lips and nods jerkily and Kit, given assent, moves closer still and opens the front of Will’s breeches. His cock is exposed, and the air, and Kit’s breath, is cool on its wetness.

“I want to _see_ you,” Kit repeats, “beneath all this.”

His hands slip up from Will’s crotch and under the tight folds of Will’s jerkin, questing at the skin.

In an urgency of action Will tries to control his hands to pull at ties and undo laces then yanks his jerkin along with his undershirt up over his head and throws them aside. His arms instinctually go to cover himself to the chill of the air and the exposure of his nakedness until he sees Kit looking up at him, hungry and unflinching. He drops his arms and lets himself be seen.

The sound Kit makes is rough with desire and he reaches out. His fingers playing down the hair on Will’s stomach until the hand reaches its target and Kit takes his grip on Will’s shaft. Slowly, oh so slowly, he pumps with his hand. Blood pounds in Will’s ears. Then Kit bows his head and takes Will into the heat of his mouth. He is a sight to see.

Those same lips which have spoken beautiful poesy and those same ink stained hands that have written it are now wrapped around his prick and pressed to the root of it. They move in concert and Will’s own hands unbidden rise up to thread into Kit’s hair to guide the motion. Will thrusts and the pulse of Kit’s tongue and his throat answer. Will hears himself panting and muttering oaths as he looks down the length of his own body, glistening now with exertion, at his friend’s head bobbing and his friend’s eyes looking back at him.

Time has no meaning. The pleasure rolls like a barrel in the base of his stomach as he feels himself building up and his balls pull tighter against his body. Then falling back, his body heaving, Will expends himself and Kit’s mouth doesn’t budge from its spot. Kit’s tongue does not stop its work. Kit swallows him.

*

Afterwards they are propped in the bed side to side, skin touching, feeling congenial in their sinfulness.

Will feels a thrilling shame fluttering against his ribcage as he looks at the man’s head resting on his shoulder, starting to doze, then glances over at the writing desk where Kit spills out his soul.

Kit sees where Will’s eyes are resting. He kisses Will’s shoulder.

“Would you read it? Tomorrow, when we wake?”

They fall asleep, tight and hot, pressed back to chest on Kit’s narrow bed. The hair on Kit’s forearms tickling his torso where he is held in his embrace.


End file.
